It’s time to share some more tomato photos from readers. And I’ll even throw in a picture of my own tomatoes, which are doing quite well this summer, I must say. These are Golden Boys, Better Boys and Black Cherry tomatoes:

My tomatoes / Lindsey Nair

Next up, we have some lovely tomatoes (below) grown by Dorothy Farmer of Roanoke, with help from her friend Otis Howell. Two of the tomatoes Dorothy and Otis grew weighed in at almost two pounds each. I don’t know what kind of tomatoes these are, but they kind of look like Brandywines:

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Photo courtesy David and Michele Routt.

Another funny vegetable grown by a green-thumbed reader. David and Michele Routt submitted this picture of a cucumber grown by Lee Robinson. I’m not sure if this is Mr. Routt or Mr. Robinson. I’m just looking at the cucumber.

I’ll be out today covering Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, an event that was organized by Mike Huckabee. On Friday, there’ll be a National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A locations. That event is being organized by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

I probably don’t need to explain what prompted the planning of these two events. If you would like to participate in our poll, click here. If you are going to participate in either of these events and would be interested in being interviewed by me, please give me a call at 540-981-3343 or email me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com

Meanwhile, if you’d like to be distracted from the whole chicken flap, how about a picture of an apple that kind of looks like a duck? This photo was submitted by reader LeeRay Costa, who got the apple in her fruit CSA from Good Food Good People. She says the cute apple was grown at Berrier Orchard in Cana, Virginia.

Photo courtesy LeeRay Costa.

Courtesy Phoenix Restoration/Facebook

Anybody who has vacationed in the Outer Banks ought to be familiar with this little stand on the beach road, John’s Drive-in. It serves some of the best burgers, crinkle-cut fries and homemade milkshakes you’ll ever taste.

I have friends and family members in the Outer Banks and look forward to John’s every summer. One of their specialties is the Dolphin Boat, which is basically a fish and chips-type basket. I was amused by this photo. But I also hope John’s, as well as all of our other favorite haunts up and down the East Coast and the people who haunt them, are spared too much damage from this storm.

You are getting veeery sleepy….. you are forgetting that Lindsey screwed up the last blog entry because this picture she took at the ethnic market is so mesmerizing……

You may have noticed that the Virginia Department of Agriculture challenged Virginians last week to eat local for one day. It was part of Virginia Farmers Market week, a special designation by Gov. Tim Kaine.

Blog reader Deb seemed to take that challenge to heart. Or maybe she didn’t hear a thing about the challenge and just wanted to enjoy some tasty local chicken, dairy and produce. She sent me this photo of her lunch yesterday with this description of what she bought on the market: “The chicken, cabbage and green apples for the slaw, potatoes and eggs for the potato salad and deviled eggs, green beans and red bell pepper, fried green tomatoes, corn on the cob and peaches for the cobbler. Barbara Kingsolver would be proud.”

She would indeed. I’m proud, and hungry, too!

I didn’t go all out like Deb, but I did buy a gorgeous head of white cabbage from the market on Friday and fried it up last night to go along with grilled pork tenderloin and big, fat slices of my neighbor’s tomatoes.

The whole house now smells of cabbage, but it’s worth it for one of my favorite side dishes. Cabbage is easy to cook, but I’ll post my method below for anyone who has never cooked it up before. Other ideas for fresh cabbage? Shoot me a message!

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Our tantalizing food photo of the week was submitted by blog reader Sean, who wrote:

“This is how I like to eat my Lox. In this version of the Lox I have a toasted bagel, cream cheese, capers and smoked salmon, of course. Then I add a little red onion, Tabasco, boiled egg and garnished with dill. Before I put everything together I sprinkle lemon on the salmon.”

Yummelicious. To see the Fridge Magnet’s fine collection of food photos, hit the Flickr site.
Please contribute your own photos! If you’d rather not join Flickr (it’s free), feel free to send them to me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

Have a tasty weekend!

The photo of the week was submitted by blog reader Kat (a.k.a. The Boss).

She rubbed this salmon with a mixture of French salts, then grilled it slowly on a cedar plank.
The side dishes are roasted garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach that came from a Franklin County farm. Kat says it only cost 99 cents per pound.

“We first heated the pan and used pork fat as our oil,” she wrote. “Then I browned some garlic in that and tossed the spinach in. After seasoning with some salt, the finishing touch was juice from half a lemon. The tartness made everything taste bright and fresh.”

Do you have a beautiful food picture? If so, submit it to my Flickr group or e-mail me at Lindsey.nair@Roanoke.com. Have a great weekend!

Feast your eyes on this beautiful rare, grilled tuna.

This photo was submitted by blog reader Sean for my new feature, the Friday photo of the week!

Since I started soliciting your food photos, I’ve received nearly 20 tantalizing pics. They range from Rich’s bacon-wrapped wild turkey breast to Nona’s famous banana pudding to Carrie’s colorful beef cacciatore.

Because I can’t feature them all on the blog, I’ve decided to start a group on the photo sharing Web site Flickr.

If you want to see all the photos, all you have to do is go here.

If you’d like to join in the fun and add your own photos to the group, all you have to do is create a Flickr account and follow the directions from there. If you need any help, please feel free to let me know!

Those of you who would rather not mess with creating a new account but still want to send food photos are welcome to e-mail them directly to me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.

Of course, if you can also submit your recipe to the blog, that would make this feature even better!

We all know a food blog just isn’t a food blog without delicious pictures of food. We also know that at some point every week, each of us sits down to such a beautiful meal or snack that it would be a pity to not capture the exquisiteness on film for all to see. That’s why I’m launching a new feature on the Fridge Magnet blog called the Photo of the Week.
I urge you to submit your food photos to me by e-mail at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com. Submit as many as you like; I will pick one each week to feature on the blog. Then the rest of us can drool all over our keyboards.
The inaugural Photo of the Week was sent in by regular reader Amy Hanek. Amy prepared these chocolate heart cakes topped with ganache and drizzled with chocolate. I dare you to tell me you don’t want one right now.